A recount that promises to be long and laborious began Thursday in a Maine congressional race that used a new voting system where voters rank candidates.

State election officials started the recount, requested by Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin in the 2nd Congressional District. The process of manually recounting the ballots is projected to take four weeks to complete.

That means the announcement of the result will likely come close to the date that Democratic Rep.-elect Jared Golden is to be seated. Golden defeated Poliquin in the historic race, which asked Maine voters to rank four candidates.

"We've never done this kind of a recount. We'll see how it goes," said Kristen Muszynski, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of the Secretary of State. "We're doing the recount by hand."

Poliquin won the first round of votes and has said he believes he should be declared the winner. But the election swung to Golden after two independents were eliminated and their second-choice votes were reassigned in ranked-choice voting. Poliquin later requested the recount.

"With an election that has had so many high profile issues, it is important for every vote to be counted accurately," said Maine Republican Party executive director Jason Savage.

The recount is the latest turn in a long, sometimes bitter election between the Republican congressman and businessman and the Democratic state representative and Marine veteran. Poliquin has cast doubt on the ranked-choice system, which voters approved in 2016, but Golden has defended it as the will of the people.

"This is just more politics from the Bruce Poliquin campaign," said Golden's campaign manager, Jon Breed. "I do not think the result is going to change."

Poliquin is also asking a federal judge to nullify the results on constitutional grounds. He wants the judge to declare him winner or order a new election. The judge heard arguments in the case on Wednesday and said he intends to make a ruling by next week .

___

This story has been corrected to include the correct spelling of Jon Breed's first name.

Popular in News

1

2

3

Reader Comments

Next Up in Politics

Bath Twp. trustees are expected to approve new contracts tonight for fire and EMS service, ending a long-standing relationship with the city of Fairborn. Contracts agreements were reached this week with Bethel, Miami and Beavercreek townships, and Bath Twp. trustees will consider approving the agreements at their meeting tonight. RELATED: A fire contract...

Two key Ohio Democrats have launched a committee aimed at “drafting” Sen. Sherrod Brown to run for president in 2020. The Committee to Draft Sherrod Brown for President 2020 — led by Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and Cleveland attorney Michael Wager — aims to advocate for Brown’s candidacy and talk about Brown’s key message...

Coming soon to a bookstore near you: The Boehner bio. Politico reported Monday that former House Speaker John Boehner is at work on a memoir about his time in Washington, a more than 20 year span lasting from when he was a rabble-rousing freshman lawmaker in 1991 to his retirement as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2015. A Boehner spokesman...

Democrats in Ohio couldn’t match the gains the party made in other states, and now some observers are wondering if the state itself should be colored in a deep shade of red. That has implications beyond politics, because Ohio has long benefited from its swing-state reputation, which brings candidates, media attention and increased spending to...

More than two-thirds of the providers in southwest Ohio who serve families with publicly funded child care are at risk of losing the ability to accept state funds when new rules go into effect in 18 months, a Dayton Daily News investigation found. The new rules and rating system were aimed at exposing more children to enrichment programs and educational...